Inclusive – services for all

Water and sanitation as human rights

Securing human rights, including the right to water and sanitation for all, contributes
to ensuring an improved quality of life, including better health, greater productivity
and expanded educational opportunities.

Where the poor live?

Informal settlements are often referred to as ‘illegal’ settlements. This can be a

significant obstacle to ensuring that people living in such areas achieve their rights,
including access to water and sanitation.
How the poor and marginalised cope

It is crucial to understand the dynamics of discrimination of vulnerable groups in

towns and cities, and the mechanisms such groups use to access water and sanitation
services.
It is necessary to identify which groups constitute or include the urban poor, to know
where they live and to understand how they currently decide which water and
sanitation facilities to use, and how much they pay for them.

Issues such as lack of security of tenure, the impact of eviction or resettlement on

urban residents, the patterns of employment and family structure, and access to other
services also need to be explored.
Affordability

A particularly important aspect of access to WASH services by the poor and marginalised is the affordability of such
services. This is especially relevant in urban informal settlements where pricing of water, particularly connection fees,
is a significant barrier to the access and use of basic services.

Finding solutions that can serve the poor

The conventional approach to urban service delivery often results in the development of large-scale piped water
networks, with private connections and communal tap stands, the commercialisation of services, communal sanitation
blocks, and centralised water and wastewater treatment plants.

many alternatives inadvertently act as mechanisms to transfer the costs of conventional service provider failure on to
the poorest consumers. It is difficult to bypass the economies of scale available through an efficient centralised service
provider.
Fit for context
Solutions appropriate to specific context.

Urban solutions for urban contexts.

Water resource management

From poverty focus to city-wide solutions

Facilitating relationships and collaboration between diverse actors

Making the links Many players, wide collaboration needed.

Urban advocacy

The local private sector

Working with all urban stakeholders

Supporting service providers

Working with regulators

urban contextual and situational analysis
Making strategic choices
Water supply
To serve poor communities at least cost, it is necessary to enable the existing utility or
local service provider to extend its service coverage to the limit of the pipe network
efficiency frontier.

This will not only extend coverage to some urban poor but will also deliver a viable
revenue base to ensure sustainability of the water provider and to facilitate cross-
subsidies for further expansion.

Delivering that extended service coverage requires advocacy and capacity building not
only with the service provider but also with the government (as policy-maker and
standard setter) and with the economic regulator.
Expanded universal service obligation diagram
The lightest blue area in the universal service obligation
diagram above represents the possibility of extending the pipe
network efficiency frontier through innovative techniques to
lower the cost of conventional distribution systems whilst
enhancing revenue collection capabilities

The use of group or street meters, remote meter banks, surface

and community labour for the laying of pipes, can all reduce the
cost of extending the pipe network. The use of community
water boards, delegated private management, tap stand vendors
and pre-paid meters can all enhance revenue collection
Guidance for urban situation analysis
Looking back

This is a reflection exercise, to assess what has been done in the

previous five years to improve access to water, sanitation and
hygiene in urban areas.

This includes examining achievements and challenges, as well

as considering what has changed in terms of its strategy and
goals, and also in government policy or the external
environment
At a minimum, a workshop to review earlier initiatives and map
their strengths and weaknesses.
National analysis areas

•Relevant national strategies , policies and legislation(directly WASH-related, water resources, shelter and
housing, non-discrimination including disability, HIV, women, minorities, health, education, environment).
•Incidenceofhumanrightsmentionedinpoliciesandlegislation,particularly recognition of the right to water and
sanitation.
•Specificunderstandingshouldbesoughtonhowsanitationsitswithinthepolicy and financial resourcing arena and how
this might link to levels of service. In the same vein, understanding should be sought on what strategies and
structures are in place to assist rapidly growing and emerging towns to deal with their specific issues (refer to
WaterAid’s Small town water and sanitation delivery: Taking a wider view 9 for further guidance).
•Overarching national institutional structure (also looking beyond just WASH issues), systems, structure and
norms.
•Other key players active in the national context.
•Financialplanningproceduresofthecity/localauthorities,andidentificationof the adequacy of financial resources
available to be sourced from the city/town authorities for WASH service provision.
•Existenceandeffectivenessofregulatoryauthorities.
•Profiling the cities/towns
• Contextualprofileofcity/town(politicalstructure,maineconomicdrivers, settlement
patterns/demography, degree of autonomy, interconnectedness with surrounding
areas, geography and available water resources) for understanding the city/town and
its WASH service needs. For specific guidance for small towns refer to WaterAid’s
Small town water and sanitation delivery: Taking a wider view 9.
• City/towngovernancestructures,howwaterandsanitationservicesarecurrently
delivered, levels of responsibility (including a service provider capacity and
performance analysis).
• Mappingofexistinginfrastructure.
• Currentestimatesoflevelsofserviceprovisionandassessmentofthequalityof
• this data.
• Existingservicedeliverysystems,includingSSIPs.
• Tariffs,subsidies,costrecovery,prevalenceofmeters,levelsofnon-revenue water.
• Location,sizeandnatureoftheurbanpoor(asperPart2)andparticularly:
• Wherepeopleaccesswaterandforwhatpurpose.
• Wherepeoplegotothetoilet.
• Whatcostsareincurredbyhouseholdsforconstruction,maintenanceand service
tariffs.
• Hygienepractices,whereitisfeasibletogatherinformation.
• To what extent existing WASH facilities are accessible and suitable for all,
• including women, older people and people with different types of disabilities.
• Livelihoods,socialprocessesandstructures.
Analytical tools
Ensuring universal access to water and sanitation is
undoubtedly a challenge, requiring strong institutions and
significant resources. WaterAid is also clear that the ultimate
aim is that these services be adequate, affordable and accessible
and that the needs of the marginalised and vulnerable are met in
a non-discriminatory manner.
In our situation analysis we should identify the sector
institutions in the town and assess their capacities to fulfil their
roles. This section suggests three tools to assist this analysis.
One useful tool is the governance/management triangle (Figure
2, p22). The analysis should examine the relationships and
barriers between these key actors, and the opportunities for
collaboration among them. Generally four separate different
triangles should be analysed (water, faecal waste, solid waste
and drainage) in recognition of the distinct delivery processes.
A second common and useful tool is a SWOT37 (Strengths,
Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis. In this
framework, the major features are organised under one of four
headings, which combine together to present a succinct
statement of each town’s water/sanitation supply or utility. For a
typical town it may appear as shown in Table 4 (next page).
A third possible tool is an ‘agencies and functions matrix’,
which maps the categories of all stakeholders (from consumer
groups to service providers and government actors) against
activities (from policy, planning and financing to operation and
maintenance) providing cells in which to describe roles and
assess capacities. Within this analysis it is also then possible to
propose or assess WaterAid’s role if any, with respect to each
stakeholder and function.